The Titanium Physicists Podcasthttp://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com
The boundary between the incomprehensible and the well explainedMon, 07 Nov 2016 05:04:06 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.5The boundary between the incomprehensible and the well explainedThe Titanium Physicists PodcastThe boundary between the incomprehensible and the well explainedThe Titanium Physicists Podcasthttp://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/wp-content/plugins/powerpress/rss_default.jpghttp://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com
Episode 68: The Shadow of Creationhttp://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/11/07/episode-68-the-shadow-of-creation/
http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/11/07/episode-68-the-shadow-of-creation/#respondMon, 07 Nov 2016 05:04:06 +0000http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/?p=1093Continue reading →]]>Okay, lets get the spelling over first:
“The Sunyaev–Zel’dovich Effect.”

The idea is that the photons we see from the cosmic microwave

This is the Picture of Temperatures/Densities in the Cosmic Microwave Background. It was taken by the WMAP satellite!

background will backlight everything that we can see. Most things don’t really interact with these cold photons… but some things can. The hot gasses surrounding giant clusters of galaxies.

and so, we can see the shadows of these things in the cosmic microwave background pattern!

]]>http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/11/07/episode-68-the-shadow-of-creation/feed/0Okay, lets get the spelling over first: “The Sunyaev–Zel’dovich Effect.” The idea is that the photons we see from the cosmic microwave background will backlight everything that we can see. Most things don’t really interact with these cold photons… but ...Okay, lets get the spelling over first: “The Sunyaev–Zel’dovich Effect.” The idea is that the photons we see from the cosmic microwave background will backlight everything that we can see. Most things don’t really interact with these cold photons… but … Continue reading →The Titanium Physicists Podcast1:01:10Episode 67: A Phonon Callhttp://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/10/01/episode-67-a-phonon-call/
http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/10/01/episode-67-a-phonon-call/#respondSat, 01 Oct 2016 07:41:04 +0000http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/?p=1089Continue reading →]]>Oh man! It’s season 6!

Listen. Today’s episode is bananas.

it’s about a type of thing called a “quasiparticle:” a phenomena that acts like a particle.
Today we’re talking about Phonons: quantized vibrations in a crystal.

]]>http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/10/01/episode-67-a-phonon-call/feed/0Oh man! It’s season 6! Listen. Today’s episode is bananas. it’s about a type of thing called a “quasiparticle:” a phenomena that acts like a particle. Today we’re talking about Phonons: quantized vibrations in a crystal. that’s right.Oh man! It’s season 6! Listen. Today’s episode is bananas. it’s about a type of thing called a “quasiparticle:” a phenomena that acts like a particle. Today we’re talking about Phonons: quantized vibrations in a crystal. that’s right. vibrations in … Continue reading →The Titanium Physicists Podcast57:31Welcome to the Titanium Physicists Podcasthttp://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/08/19/welcome-to-the-titanium-physicists-podcast/
http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/08/19/welcome-to-the-titanium-physicists-podcast/#respondSat, 20 Aug 2016 00:16:44 +0000http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/?p=1071Continue reading →]]>My name is Dr. Ben Tippett, and I have some people I would like you to meet. Over the course of my travels, I have collected a team of the world’s smartest, most clear thinking, and well spoken physicists and astronomers.

I call them my Titanium Physicists!

Every episode, I bring together two of my physicists with some of the most fun and interesting people I have ever met, and we have a conversation about a wizard-level physics topic. It’s fun, and fascinating, and entirely unique.

If there is a specific physics topic you are interested in learning more about, have a look through our “Topics” section. The blog below will feature our most recent episodes as they are posted.

]]>http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/08/19/welcome-to-the-titanium-physicists-podcast/feed/0Episode 66: Life on Mars with Zach Weinersmithhttp://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/07/20/episode-66-life-on-mars-with-zach-weinersmith/
http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/07/20/episode-66-life-on-mars-with-zach-weinersmith/#respondWed, 20 Jul 2016 20:52:29 +0000http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/?p=873Continue reading →]]>apparently it’s not unreasonable that we should expect to find signs of life on mars. It’s a totally serious and interesting field of astrophysics!

We invite Zach Weinersmith to converse with Dr. Briony Horgan and Dr. Catherine Neish, and we talk about all of the crazy things we know about mars.

listen after the end to hear a bananas conversation about mars probes!!

]]>http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/07/20/episode-66-life-on-mars-with-zach-weinersmith/feed/0apparently it’s not unreasonable that we should expect to find signs of life on mars. It’s a totally serious and interesting field of astrophysics! We invite Zach Weinersmith to converse with Dr. Briony Horgan and Dr. Catherine Neish,apparently it’s not unreasonable that we should expect to find signs of life on mars. It’s a totally serious and interesting field of astrophysics! We invite Zach Weinersmith to converse with Dr. Briony Horgan and Dr. Catherine Neish, and we … Continue reading →The Titanium Physicists Podcast1:08:07Episode 65: New Ways of Looking With Elizabeth Bearhttp://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/05/22/episode-65-new-ways-of-looking-with-elizabeth-bear/
http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/05/22/episode-65-new-ways-of-looking-with-elizabeth-bear/#commentsMon, 23 May 2016 01:22:12 +0000http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/?p=867Continue reading →]]>

a ccd is a thing inside a camera

hey.
how does a digital camera work?
no, not all the lenses. lenses are baby things.
how do you take the light, and turn it into digital signals?

]]>http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/05/22/episode-65-new-ways-of-looking-with-elizabeth-bear/feed/1hey. how does a digital camera work? no, not all the lenses. lenses are baby things. how do you take the light, and turn it into digital signals? we’re talking: CCDs,CMOS cameras, MKIDs, and superconducting bolometers!hey. how does a digital camera work? no, not all the lenses. lenses are baby things. how do you take the light, and turn it into digital signals? we’re talking: CCDs,CMOS cameras, MKIDs, and superconducting bolometers! it’s a wild day on … Continue reading →The Titanium Physicists Podcast54:32Episode 64: E and N (The edges of Einstein)http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/04/25/episode-64-e-and-n-the-edges-of-einstein/
http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/04/25/episode-64-e-and-n-the-edges-of-einstein/#commentsMon, 25 Apr 2016 03:18:19 +0000http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/?p=863Continue reading →]]>

Einstein lived here

Okay, so Consider something.
The theory of relativity is bananas. It makes all sorts of really really hard to believe claims about the nature of reality.

So why would we entertain such nonsense?

because it’s “true”? nothing’s ‘true’ in science.

We believe it because it’s SUPPORTED WITH EVIDENCE.
so in this episode, we’re going to look at some of the evidence supporting Einstein’s theory of relativity.

]]>http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/04/25/episode-64-e-and-n-the-edges-of-einstein/feed/3Okay, so Consider something. The theory of relativity is bananas. It makes all sorts of really really hard to believe claims about the nature of reality. So why would we entertain such nonsense? because it’s “true”? nothing’s ‘true’ in science.Okay, so Consider something. The theory of relativity is bananas. It makes all sorts of really really hard to believe claims about the nature of reality. So why would we entertain such nonsense? because it’s “true”? nothing’s ‘true’ in science. … Continue reading →The Titanium Physicists Podcast1:24:44Episode 63: Worldbuilding with Patrick McHalehttp://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/03/25/episode-63-worldbuilding-with-patrick-mchale/
http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/03/25/episode-63-worldbuilding-with-patrick-mchale/#commentsFri, 25 Mar 2016 07:47:47 +0000http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/?p=859Continue reading →]]>Hey so.

there are planets around other stars.

We know this for a fact. we can detect them in all sorts of different ways. WE CAN EVEN SEE THEM occasionally.

it’s a planet! we have IMAGED a planet around another star in the infrared. it was taken by the gemini telescope in hawaii in 2008. it’s name is 1RSX J160929.1-210524

the crazy thing is that the other planetary systems out there don’t look very much like our own!

]]>http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/03/25/episode-63-worldbuilding-with-patrick-mchale/feed/4Hey so. there are planets around other stars. We know this for a fact. we can detect them in all sorts of different ways. WE CAN EVEN SEE THEM occasionally. the crazy thing is that the other planetary systems out … Continue reading →Hey so. there are planets around other stars. We know this for a fact. we can detect them in all sorts of different ways. WE CAN EVEN SEE THEM occasionally. the crazy thing is that the other planetary systems out … Continue reading →The Titanium Physicists Podcast59:56*NONEPISODE* ben’s feelingshttp://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/02/11/nonepisode-bens-feelings/
http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/02/11/nonepisode-bens-feelings/#commentsThu, 11 Feb 2016 17:37:05 +0000http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/?p=852Continue reading →]]>I Just want to take a moment to celebrate this enormous achievement.

ligo detects gravitational waves, chirp, ringdown

The LIGO collaboration has just announced that it has directly detected the gravitational wave signal from a pair of colliding black holes.

We have already done a ton of shows on the topic (here is a list), so i’m going to leave the technical explanations of black holes to past and future shows.

this episode is just me, reflecting on the announcement. it was a heroic effort, and a massive accomplishment. The names of the physicists involved surely will live forever.

congratulations, everyone!

*ADDENDUM*
i just read the paper. so many many people worked so hard on it. and the paper is so well written.

it is indeed a 36 (ish) solar mass black hole colliding with a 29 (ish) solar mass black hole to make a 64 (ish) solar mass black hole. The event is being called “GW150914”. In the end, they were going too fast, and were too close together to be neutron stars.

i want to take a moment and talk about the process, because careful scientists will want to know the probability that this is a false detection.

There are (were) 2 detectors online (at the time), and they both have to detect the same type of signal at about the same time to be taken seriously.

They have TWO independent ways of analyzing the data, to make sure that it’s good. Their data is potentially contaminated with sound waves and vibrations from earth, so a lot of work goes into isolating the system, listening for the earth-based sound waves, and using it to eliminate potential events.

One of the methods listens for things that are weird (both detected it) and loud and definitely aren’t sound waves (based on their other instruments). GW150914 was All of these.

The other method analyzes the data as it comes out of the detector, “listening” for certain signals, as described by a catalogue of 250,000 different templates (theoretical waveforms generated using numerical simulations of different possible mergers). signals aren’t taken seriously unless both LIGO sites heard the same “type” of signal. GW150914 also passed this test.

So yeah. Both tests detected the same thing, and they are very very very very confident that what they heard was black holes merging.

The data from the LIGO paper in phys. rev. lett.

]]>http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/02/11/nonepisode-bens-feelings/feed/2I Just want to take a moment to celebrate this enormous achievement. The LIGO collaboration has just announced that it has directly detected the gravitational wave signal from a pair of colliding black holes.I Just want to take a moment to celebrate this enormous achievement. The LIGO collaboration has just announced that it has directly detected the gravitational wave signal from a pair of colliding black holes. We have already done a ton … Continue reading →The Titanium Physicists Podcast31:31GRAVITATIONAL WAVEShttp://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/02/09/gravitational-waves/
http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/02/09/gravitational-waves/#respondTue, 09 Feb 2016 15:29:42 +0000http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/?p=849Continue reading →]]>So.
before this coming thursday, ye might be interested in refreshing yourself on the topic of GRAVITATIONAL WAVES.

]]>http://titaniumphysicists.brachiolopemedia.com/2016/02/01/episode-62-black-bells-with-brent-knopf-and-matt-sheehy/feed/3Take a black hole and throw something into it. it doesn’t matter what. A phone. A Neighbour. A Taco. Whatever. As it falls in, the black hole will start to emit gravitational waves. at a very specific tone. like a … Continue reading →Take a black hole and throw something into it. it doesn’t matter what. A phone. A Neighbour. A Taco. Whatever. As it falls in, the black hole will start to emit gravitational waves. at a very specific tone. like a … Continue reading →The Titanium Physicists Podcast1:29:09